People utilize personal computers (“PCs”) in their daily lives to access, create, and manipulate many different types of information. For example, people commonly access information contained in World Wide Web (“Web”) pages stored on the Internet. People also regularly create, view, and manipulate other types of documents, such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, databases, computerized presentations, photographs, movies, and other images and media.
After accessing information and viewing it on a computer display, users are often able to perform various actions with respect to the information and any documents containing the information. For example, using one or more input devices such as a keyboard and a computer mouse, a user may add or delete information from a document and alter the appearance, configuration, and layout of the information within the document. The user may choose to zoom in or out of the document so that more or less of the information within the document is viewable at a given time according to the characteristics of the computer display on which the document is being viewed.
If the user desires to take notes relating to the document or add comments or other annotations to the document, either for personal use or to share with another user, she currently has several options. First, the user may insert comments or other annotations within the document itself if the document allows for editing. For example, the user may add comments within a word processing document using a color, font, highlighting, capitalization, or any other method for distinguishing the comments from the information itself. However, doing so requires that changes be made to the underlying document.
Another option for taking notes or annotating the document is to utilize a separate application program or document. For example, the user may create a separate document in the same or different application in which to draft notes and comments. However, doing so requires at least two documents, the original document and the document containing the notes and comments. This can be cumbersome and creates an opportunity for inadvertent separation of the two documents.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is provided.